Thursday, March 8, 2018- Cruise Day 44; Off to Machu Picchu!

Thursday, March 8, 2018- Cruise Day 44; Off to Machu Picchu!

The ship pulled into port very early, as evidenced by port lights blazing in through our balcony window at 5:00AM.  We had set our alarm clocks to get up at 5:45 because we had to be off the ship with our suitcases packed for our Machu Picchu excursion before 8:00AM.  Everyone was very excited to be beginning this special adventure.  We had received colored bus number tags to divide us up into 5 buses that would take us from the San Martin port near Pisco to the airport in Pisco.  The area around the port looked like what you’d expect Saudi Arabia or Kuwait to look.  It was a bleak and barren dessert as far as the eye could see.  It is hard to imagine the Nasca indians, predecessors to the Inca, managed to make a living in this harsh land, let alone figure out the technology to create the enormous geoglyphs that they are famous for creating (The Nasca Lines are sculptures drawn on an enormous scale, best appreciated from 2000 ft in altitude from an airplane.  Some are visible from a few places on land and from the sea.)  Unfortunately, our tour did not take us to where we could see those- that was a separate excursion.  

As we drove from the San Martin port to Pisco, we drove past a lot of industrial activity along the coast that looked like chemical manufacturing or other heavy industries.  Curiously, all of these plants were surrounded by high concrete or brick walls worthy of a federal prison, complete with razor wire and guard towers along the walls and on every corner.  There were abandoned lots enclosed by crumbling or fragmented walls that looked bombed out, and some contained collections of hovels or improvised housing.  There were blocks and blocks of uniform concrete housing units closer to the town of Pisco, where we imagine most of the plant workers lived.  Someone heard that some of the plants might be desalination plants.  Despite the desert environment that gets less than 2” of rain per year, the area is a large producer of agricultural crops using advanced irrigation techniques taught by the Israelis.  You have to wonder if they are drawing water from deep wells, just how long that’s going to last before the 10 million year old ground water is all sucked out.  

As we drove around the bay, the Island Princess really stood out against the stark backdrop of the arid dessert.  Pisco is developing into a tourist beach resort with hotels, and there are lot of birds and other sealife that appears abundant.  We saw flocks of flamingo’s in the shallows from a distance as we sped by in our bus, and there was no shortage of commorants, vultures, gulls and other birds lining the shore.  

We turned away from the beach into the heart of Pisco, which looks and feels second world.  There are 3 wheeled Tuk-Tuks scattered on the street, and much of the housing looks incomplete or improvised to a large degree.  Then we turned a corner through a large security gate and entered the under construction Pisco soon to be International Airport.  It was a stark contrast going through the security gate to see a thoroughly modern passenger terminal, neatly paved streets with wide curbs and sidewalks, steel concrete and glass.  It was like we warped through a portal into another dimension or place.  

Inside the terminal, we unloaded from the buses and formed a huge line in the terminal.  We were the only passengers in the entire building.  Princess had chartered an Airbus A320-200 to get us from Pisco Airport to Cusco Airport.  The counters in the terminal were all still shrink wrapped in plastic and protective tape covering the stainless steel parts.  It looked like they had just unwrapped 50’ of the counter for us and were using it for the first time.  Checked pieces of luggage were hand inspected, which was a bit odd.  There was no Wifi in the terminal, but there was a modern bathroom, but no paper towels.  Oddly, next to the bathrooms appeared to be a room with an OB-GYN exam table, exam light and cabinets of equipment, like they were prepared to really do a thorough strip down and scope every orifice exam if you mouthed off to the TSA agents there.  It took nearly an hour to get us all checked in because it was all done manually- no computers working yet.  

We took our morning dose of Acetazolamide before our flights to lessen the possibility of altitude sickness.  This lessens swelling in the brain and lungs related to the decompression of going from sea level to the 10,000ft in altitude at Cusco.  

In addition to our charter flight to Cusco, there were a handful of Princess passengers who had also arrived to do an overflight of the Nasca Lines in Cessna super cubs.  

There also appears to be a Peruvian air force facility using the runways. They were flying T-37’s and single engine prop planes, some of which were painted with the tiger-shark mouth on the nose.  There were also some large twin engine turboprop transport planes as well.  

We finally walked out on the tarmack as a group and climbed stairs to board the plane.  Once we were all seated, the Pilot informed us that we would have to sit on the tarmack for another half hour because of congestion at Cusco’s airport.  Fortunately, they did have the air conditioning running.  Once we got off the ground, we craned our necks around the windows to see if we might catch a sight of a Nasca line drawing, but our flight took us directly out to sea, then turning north, looped around and then headed east to Cusco.  The Nasca lines are south of Pisco, so we didn’t really stand much of a chance of seeing them.  Actually, they are probably nearly impossible to see from the 30,000 ft cruising altitude of a commercial airliner, so it’s unlikely aliens created them to communicate with their mother ships in space.  

The flight to Cusco took an hour.  There was some confusion in sorting passengers into the small vans that would transport us around Cusco and Machu-Picchu. Tags with van numbers were issued during the bus ride from San Martin Port to Pisco airport, but there weren’t enough tags for everyone on the bus, and our guide said he’d get the last tags at the airport.  

When we got to the baggge claim, there were a few travel agency booths offering free cocoa leaves (3 leaves gratis), so on the advise of people we had talked with about Machu Picchu, we took a pinch of them and chewed them and parked them between our cheeks and gum.  You’re not supposed to swallow, but that’s hard not to do.  The one thing you notice almost immediately is your cheek and gums got slightly numb.  Not enough to do dental surgery, but that was definitely the cocaine working.  Everyone did seem less irritable and happier with the cocoa leaves.  

After we climbed into our assigned van, we found there was almost no place to sit.  We ended up cramped over a wheel well hump that took up half the leg room, and during the pre-excursion meeting on the ship, we were told we would be in groups of no more than 10-12 for the duration of the Machu Picchu tours.  We looked around and there were 15 people in our van.  As other vans pulled out, we saw some had empty rows of seats, and were clearly not as full as our van.  When we stopped for lunch, we complained to the tour director.  He explained some people had moved from a different van into our van to travel with their friends, overcrowding our van.  In the end, he reallocated us to a van with 11 passengers.  While the total was still more than we had expected (13), it was better than 15, and we were able to get seats were we could put our feet on the floor of the van.  

The lunch stop was at the Sheraton in Cusco.  They had a brunch set up but they had to improvise seating for 5 people in our van because the tables had only been set up for 10 passengers per van.  That also didn’t please us, but we ended up on a private 2 top.  The altitude was probably making us a bit irritable. There was also some anxiety about retrieving our backpacks and coats from the first van, and getting them into the second the van. They did end up having to hold the second van for a few minutes while the first van could make it’s way through traffic to where we could grab our stuff.  

Our next stop was to visit the ruins at Sacsayhuaman, which lie on a hilltop overlooking Cusco.  Our guide said it’s pronounced like “Sexy woman”.  The buses dropped off passengers at the park entrance and we had to walk up a slight incline less than a quarter mile to the site. Our guide advised everyone to take it very slowly and to breathe deeply.  Cusco is at slightly over 11,000 ft in altitude.  We found that if you went at your usual pace, it wasn’t hard to feel a bit dizzy, so we took it slowly.  One woman in our group only made it about 300 feet before having to sit, and she ended up bailing on the site.  She was walked back to the bus and had to suck some oxygen for a bit before she could continue on the tour after everyone else had toured the site and returned to the van. We also saw one man lying on his back in the grass for a while surrounded by concerned family and friends.  Someone we had dinner with later that evening told us that 3 people in his van had not been able to do the Sacsayhuaman tour.  

We did manage to see the site, which has some amazing stone work, especially when you consider it was done in prehistoric times during the bronze age.  We were allowed to walk around and through the structure, but we limited climbing, staying around the base and only going up one level.  The Spanish called it a fort, but it appears more likely that it was a site for performance of some sort of rituals because you could see it was arranged like a giant amphitheater.  

Our next stop was an overlook of the Sacred Valley, which is where our hotels for the night were situated.  It is a beautiful verdant valley with a few towns, lots of agriculture and scattered Incan remains in the hillsides, including agricultural terraces.  The hills give way to imposing craggy peaks, some of which are peaked with snow fields.  The valley is famous for at least two culinary items.  One is a strain of corn that produces enormous kernels, which most people have seen when they opened a package of Corn-Nuts.  Elderly women were in the parking lot at Sacsayhuaman selling ears of the cooked corn, which looked delicious, but we didn’t bite.  The kernels were as big as the end of a finger.  The other culinary item for which the valley is famous is Guinea Pig.  Yes, the same critters that 4H’ers have a pets.  They are roasted on a spit, and a taste is apparently very expensive.  However, instead of tasting ilke chicken, our guide says they taste like the best pork you’ve ever had in your life.  It was strangely awkward to see a giant upright smiling fiberglas Guinea Pig beaconing people into the restaurant to have a taste of him.  

We got to the Hotel, the Tambo Del Inka Resort and Spa about 30 minutes prior to sunset. It is part of the Starwood Preferred Guest network as part of the Luxury Collection.  Aside from the lobby and rooms being too dimly lit for our tastes, it is a remarkably decadent hotel with every imaginable comfort and convenience.  It even has free real wifi internet.  I’ll say that when it comes to picking our accomodations for their overland excursions, Princess really knows how to do it right.  Our suitcases were already in our rooms when we arrived, and after unpacking a exploring the room a bit, we had a very nice dinner in a banquet room for the Princess Excursion group.  There was delicious herbal fresh bread on the tables, followed by a delicious blended zucchini soup.  The main course was beef tenderloins in a delicious reduction with grilled vegetables and rice. The dessert was a flan or custard topped with shavings of delicious chocolate that sparkled in the light on top, and a brownie at the bottom of the glass they were served in. The food was excellent and of the highest quality and presentation.  When everyone was finished, they had a group of waiters surround the table, and then simultaneously levitate all the plates off the table at the same moment.  And then they swept them away like a fleet of UFO’s.  The new dishes all swept their way in front of us in a similar manner. 

There was a very talented 2 piece band of Peruvian musicians.  One played the guitar and the other did pan flutes, a bird whistle, rain sticks and other environmental effect that gave a magical feel to the music.  They were easily talented enough that they could have brought the Princess Theater to a standing ovation.  

We took another dose of Acetazolamide and some Inka Muña cocoa leaf tea before retiring to bed in an enormous California King bed.  Tomorrow, we head to Machu Picchu for the main event.